Beauty in Imperfecton

This gorgeous cymbidium I received from a friend’s garden, has been standing in a vase in my house for the past few weeks. I’ve seen it start to decay, flowers dropping to the ground and it’s stem browning more each day. But somehow it became more beautiful to me with each passing day, the flowers turning a deep, intense purple, and I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I was wondering if I was the only one with a weird fascination with the beauty in decay/imperfection, so I started Google’ing. I couldn’t believe that there was actually a term for it! “Wabi-Sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay and death. It’s simple, slow and uncluttered – and it reveres authenticity above all. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we’re all but transient beings on this planet – that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came.” WABI-SABI – THE ART OF BROKEN BEAUTY Read more here